RS5- The Reactions of Many
by 90TheGeneral09
Summary: The story of people's reactions to Zero Day, mainly Chris, the Kriegmans, the Gabriels, and Rachel.
1. Chapter 1- Chris Kriegman

**Chapter 1: Chris Kriegman**

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 **May 1** **st** **, 2001, 10:06AM**

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 **A/N: This is the fifth deleted story that I am attempting to rewrite, hence RS5, Restoration Series 5. Honestly, I feel that the last 4 rewrites went well, though with the traffic this fandom gets, I'll probably get little to no feedback confirming or denying that impression. The original story by the name "The Reactions of Many" was posted to this site by another user on 12-20-2011, and was inexplicably deleted by that user sometime in 2016. I spent hours on this and each of the other RS stories, trying to remember and rebuild what I could from the original story as a sort of scaffolding within which to write the rest of the story, filling in the gaps with my own work. This isn't going to be an exact replacement of the original story, but it's as close as I can make it and does contain pieces and segments of text from the original story.**

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Chris Kriegman yawned as he walked back into the room, scratching at the back of his neck. He looked around, trying to figure out if anything was out of place. As he did so, Chris frowned as he saw a piece of paper that had been placed purposefully atop some books that he didn't remember putting there.

He walked over and picked the paper up. Before glancing at it, he pulled open the drawers of his desk, wondering now if anything else had been moved or any more items placed there that hadn't been there before. No, nothing new in the desk drawers. Okay, so he'd checked that at least. Chris now directed his attention to the piece of paper.

 _Chris sorry we took your guns. We needed them for our movie. Have fun at yo momma's._

There was no signature, but Chris didn't need to see one to know who had written it.

Suddenly Chris knew he had to check something else, and he had to do it right now. He set the piece of paper back down where Andre and Cal had left it and hurried out of the room he used as his office. He had the most horrible feeling that his cousin and his cousin's best friend hadn't been kidding in that note. Chris stopped at the entrance to his hallway closet; he had always hidden the key you needed to get at the guns on top of the doorframe, where you'd never see it and almost nobody would ever think to look. Reaching up, he grabbed the key for his gun closet door. He swung it open and very quickly determined the truth.

Only half of his guns remained, half or so. The M1 Garand was here, his No. 1 Mk. III Lee-Enfield was here. His .22 LR bolt-action rifle and his .22 LR gas-operated, semi-auto rifle was here. No boxes of .303 British or .30-06 seemed to be missing, and ditto for the .22 LR ammunition.

The M1 Carbine was gone, and so was every magazine for it. The .30 Carbine ammunition was all missing. The Smith & Wesson Model 2000, his 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun, the Norinco .45 automatic pistol, the Glock 21, also chambered in .45 ACP, and the Ruger GP100 .357 Magnum revolver- they were all missing and so were their magazines and their ammunition.

Andre and Cal had come here and taken them. They'd known just where to find the key.

What the hell for?

Why had they stolen Chris' guns?

This was a serious crime and as much as Andre valued family ties, he was not going to be able to just let this go. Community service was not going to do it, either. Andre and Cal would both need to learn a stern lesson from this.

But they'd never been in trouble with the law before, not so far as Chris knew, and he definitely would have heard about it from Andre's parents if either of the boys had committed larcenous crimes.

Andre and Calvin were both eighteen now. Chris was going to have no choice but to report this to the police; the boys were going to have to learn a lesson and that was all there was to it. That meant that this would be going on their record, and theft- especially theft of firearms- was no joke. This was going to follow them for a long, long time. Yet Andre and Calvin were not stupid or needlessly reckless; they were actually more thoughtful and considerate than the average guys their age were. They tended not to do things, especially serious things, without a damn good reason. There had to be one for this, but damned if Chris could see what it was.

Chris had tried to teach those two about gun safety. Didn't Andre and Calvin get how fucking dangerous guns were? What were they going to do with them?

Thoughts were racing through Chris' mind, memories and possible scenarios. He was struggling to comprehend why Andre and Cal, who had never abused his trust once before, would do this now.

"What do you think would be the best gun to actually kill somebody with?" Calvin had asked him. "Well, they'd pretty much all kill somebody," Chris had answered.

It may have been Chris' imagination, but Andre and Cal had seemed oddly… interested in the answers to some of their questions. There were just things they'd asked him, here and there, where they had seemed riveted by Chris' response, hanging on every word. At the time, Chris had never given it much thought. He had figured that Andre and Cal were just curious teenagers, or that he was an interesting guy and they were just impressed with him. It looked like the reality was neither was true. Maybe they had never been interested in Chris at all. Maybe they'd been biding their time, behaving innocently and throwing a question they seriously wanted and perhaps needed an answer to in amongst all the normal stuff.

Maybe they'd wanted to know which guns out of the ones Chris owned would be best to kill someone with- because they were planning to do just that.

Chris turned away from his gun safe, feeling a bit guilty for thinking of his cousin and his cousin's friend like that. Andre and Calvin may have chosen to be thieves, but… they weren't murderers.

Right?

Yes. That was right. Chris had known Andre since he had been a little boy, and he and Cal had been two peas in a pod ever since they had met in September of 1997. He knew those two, or he was pretty sure he did anyway. They were a little odd, a little unusual, but they weren't killers. Chris just didn't believe that about them, even when they'd robbed him of half his firearms. But… he had to admit… the idea had more gravity than it ever would have before. Chris would have rejected the idea of Andre and Cal stealing his guns from him right alongside the idea of them using the guns to kill anybody. They'd done one thing Chris would have never believed they'd do. Would they do the other, too?

Everyone thought that they were just two normal boys, but they weren't. Andre said it himself though; who _would_ want to think that their friend, son, peer, would ever do anything like this? Who would see it coming if that person concealed their intentions until the very end?

Chris didn't like this. He didn't like it at all. He went downstairs and into his living room, turned on the television and went to channel 6, ZNN's channel.

"…what type of situation exactly is unfolding, but it appears that armed intruders are active at Tielson High School. So far numerous 9-1-1 calls have been placed from inside the school and there are reports of as many as 6 serious injuries, all from gunshot wounds. Viewers are advised to keep their distance from Tielson, as police have advised that gunshots are still being heard."

Chris stood there, dumbfounded. Tielson. That- that was Andre's high school. Cal's too. One or more armed intruders, gunshots being heard, reports of students getting shot…

Was it possible?

Could it really have happened?

Was this some impossible coincidence that Andre and Calvin stole Andre's guns and now there was a shooting at their high school… or was this all happening exactly the way they had wanted it?

Chris Kriegman stood immobile for almost a minute. Then, by chance, the ZNN camera panned over the parking lot, the one where teachers and staff parked. A blue 1989 Pontiac Grand Am was sitting in one space, and there was no pretending that it was some teacher's car. Chris caught the license plate number before the view changed. It was Andre's car, parked against school rules in the faculty lot. Like it didn't matter where he parked, not to him, not today.

Like he didn't care…

Suddenly, Chris ran over to the corded phone on his wall. He dialed 9-1-1, terribly afraid that he had an valuable information on the identities and armaments of the shooters at Tielson High School. There was no way this was real. This had to be a bad dream. It couldn't be happening.

Yet Chris was dialing 9-1-1, about to tell them he thought that it was.

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 **A/N: 3-6-2017 was the original upload date for this chapter. Below are the sections of original text I was able to recover from Chapter 1 of "The Reactions of Many". The first two lines are a piece of the original author's notes for this chapter. Chris Kriegman was chosen as a featured character because, as the original author states, Andre and Cal left him a note. Even if they hadn't, given that those are his firearms being used in the shooting, Chris would be a superb feature character for a story like this. As you can see, the original author at least briefly entertained the idea of writing a fifth chapter, but I can testify that they never did. It would be difficult to do a fifth chapter anyway, because after Chris, Rachel, the Kriegmans and the Gabriels, who would you feature? I will not be writing a fifth chapter due to that issue and the fact that I plan on recreating the original story as closely as possible, which means sticking to the original number of chapters.**

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 **So probably around** _ **4**_ **or 5** _ **chapters**_ **... this is the first** _ **chapter**_ **. I chose Chris as Cal and** _ **Andre**_ **left them a note. Also, seeing as how there was ...**

 _ **Chris**_ **yawned as he walked back into his room, scratching at the back of his neck. He looked around, trying to figure out if anything**was out of place.**

 **Looking around, Chris frowned as he saw a piece of paper placed purposefully**atop some books**that he didn't remember putting there.**

 **Standing up he walked over and picked the paper up.**

 _ **Chris**_ **opened the drawers before** _ **taking**_ **a few steps back.**

 **Chris, sorry we took your guns. We needed them for our movie. Have fun at yo momma's. There was no signature, but** _ **Chris**_ **didn't need to see** _ **one**_ **to know**who had**written it.**

 **Reaching up, he grabbed the** _ **key**_ **for his gun closet door.**

 **Only** _ **one gun**_ **remained—the** _ **gun**_ **he had removed the indicator on.**

 **So far, there have been six kids** _ **taken**_ **to hospitals for serious injuries.**

 _ **Chris**_ **always had the** _ **feeling**_ **of de-ja-vu but it never amounted to anything.**

 **"What** _ **do**_ **you think would be the best gun to actually kill somebody with?**

 **That question had been** _ **purely**_ **hypothetical.**

 **Didn't Andre and** _ **Calvin**_ **get how fucking dangerous guns were? What were they going to** _ **do**_ **with them?**

 **Everyone thought that they were just two normal boys, but they weren't.**Andre said it himself though; who** _ **would**_ **want to think that their friend, son**

 **away, feeling a bit guilty for thinking of his** _ **cousin**_ **and** _ **cousin's**_ **friend like that.**


	2. Chapter 2- Rachel Lurie

**Chapter 2: Rachel Lurie**

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 **May 1** **st** **, 2001: 10:06AM**

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Rachel hid behind one of the library bookshelves as soon as she heard the shooting start. Some of the other students in the library thought it might be fireworks, a senior prank, but somehow Rachel simply knew better. The relatively small amount of gunpowder in each shot detonating, at a distance- it kind of did sound like firecrackers of a similar size. It wasn't the exact sound that would stick with Rachel later, as her remembered reason for why she had known this was no joke, no prank.

It was the screams.

Rachel and a few others took cover behind the shelves as the gunshots and the sound of yelling voices got closer, but others- too many others- simply stayed where they were. Some looked confused, still not believing this was real. Others just didn't know what to do. Their minds were overwhelmed with fear, so they froze in place, unable to come up with any other plan.

When the gunfire- and it could not be mistaken for anything else after it had been getting closer and closer for about three minutes- reached the library, then her part of it, Rachel's mind was racing faster than she'd have ever thought possible. Knowing she might not be alive much longer made her feel intensely, feverishly alive, and while she stayed motionless and low behind the shelves, she tried to think of who could be doing this, and why. Was it an outside attacker? Some crazy, disgruntled former public school employee with a gun?

No, not just one, at least. The timing and locations of the shots- there was no way one person was moving around the room like that, firing one weapon in one spot and then moving ten or twenty feet away to fire the other.

And Rachel began to hear voices.

One registered right away, like she'd been expecting it. Andre Kriegman. She heard him talking, taunting other students in between shots. Andre… he had always seemed the type, as awful as that was to assume that about someone. Even with Andre, even at the height of her dislike for him, Rachel had assumed that Andre was just putting forward an unconventional "tough guy" persona so people would leave him alone, or that he was genuinely that antisocial, but still had no violent plans. It all made a horrible kind of sense now. Andre had probably wanted something like this for a long time.

Rachel could hear it in his voice, even without daring to try to peek between the shelves to see him. She could hear Andre's joy, his exultation. He had always ranted about what he'd do if he was in charge, if no one was there to stop him- if he'd only had the kind of power his beloved Führer had wielded, even for just one day. Or just one hour. Moving around in the library, Andre did not sound angry, or on the verge of anger, as he so often did. Andre sounded like he was enjoying himself, really enjoying himself. He sounded happy.

A girl was screaming, from under the tables from the sound of it. Boots thudded on one of the long rows of desks, and a boy started pleading with, Rachel could only assume, one of the shooters. Oh, God, if he was pleading with Andre, he was about to get a rude awakening. Nothing in all her interactions with Andre, in all the things she had ever seen or heard about him, had even hinted to Rachel that Andre had much of a capacity for mercy.

"Stop, man, just stop…"

"You want me to stop?"

"They're all dead, man, you-you killed everybody, please…"

"You want me to stop, right now?" A pause. "SHUT UP!"

Rachel froze as she heard that other boy speak.

She knew that voice.

She knew that boy. And even as she listened to him incredulously react to another student asking- begging- for him to end this, even as she listened to him scream at the terrified girl who simply could not keep quiet, Rachel begged that this not be true.

That was Calvin Gabriel. There wasn't even the slightest chance it could be anyone else.

"Look at- look at her right there," Cal ordered the other student. "See? She's dead, her blood's all over the floor. Yeah? Aren't you glad I'm letting you live?"

"So far," Andre snickered from close by.

Then the girl screamed again, a cry of pure terror, and Rachel, unable to help it, unable to stop herself, peeked through the gap between the bottom shelf and the one above it at exactly the right and wrong moment. Calvin whirled toward the screaming girl, his pale, handsome face contorted with fury, and leveled some kind of wood-and-steel, old-looking rifle at the girl under the table. "SHUT UP!" he shouted, and gunshots thundered against Rachel's ears. Brass bullet casings flew from the firearm as it made little jumps in Calvin's steady hands.

Rachel's eyes saw it all as her friend of several years did that. She also saw, well within her field of vision, the girl fired at. He saw her head as it was jerked back by the first shot, her body as it shook with the impact of the rest… and her blood as it splattered the tiles. There was so much of it under that table already. Rachel looked down, fighting a powerful wave of nausea. She wasn't going to look up again. She'd seen… _far_ more than enough.

That was her friend out there, murdering those teenagers. Calvin Gabriel, the boy who'd always been so even-tempered, so kind. Even as he befriended Andre and withdrawn from the social scene, even as he'd drifted away from his other friends and other potential friends as he grew closer to Andre, his classmates had nonetheless mostly forgiven him for it. Had Calvin changed his view and suddenly wanted to make other friends than just Andre, Rachel knew he would've been able to do it.

But he hadn't wanted to.

She knew that voice. But she didn't, at the same time. Rachel listened as Cal taunted other kids right before he killed them, the contempt in his voice. And the rage she'd heard as Cal told that girl to shut up… Rachel had never imagined that a single human voice could hold such unrestrained fury, such pure, venomous hate. The look she'd seen on his face as he silenced the girl who was too scared to shut up like he told her to- it matched the sound of his voice. It was like some monster, some demon had killed Cal and assumed his image, or possessed him, overriding all of his good qualities, wiping out his kindness.

Calvin Gabriel was out there, but Rachel could not match him up with the boy she'd been friends with for years. She didn't know him anymore.

Things went quiet for a minute or two. In the dead silence of the library, Rachel could hear everything.

"Okay, I've had plenty of fun with the carbine," Cal commented, and there was a weighted thunk as something- presumably the carbine- was set down on one of the desks. There was another thunk, and Andre said, "Yeah. I think we can go to pistols now unless we feel like switching again."

"Sure, why not?" Calvin said, friendly and agreeable.

Then:

"Hey, look!" Andre called out, moving away from the desks. "It's Greg! Greg, siddown, man."

"Please don't hurt me, sir," Greg pleaded. Confused, frightened. Totally helpless, at the mercy of the boy who finally had found his good mood after years of being surly and unfriendly with just about everyone.

Andre laughed, sounding genuinely amused. "Sir! I _like_ that."

Calvin chuckled from close by. "He called you sir!"

"I can't kill you, man; you're too pathetic," Andre said. "You're gonna live today, man! You're gonna live!"

A volley of gunshots followed, hammering against Rachel's eardrums. It… it just wasn't possible. She'd just heard a classmate and friend die. Andre had tricked him, let him have some hope for a moment… then he'd killed even that minor hope as he murdered Greg. In sharp contrast with his friendly, cheerful voice, Andre was as merciless and cruel as anyone had ever thought he would be. But Andre… he wasn't the real surprise.

Cal was. Even as she listened to Andre mock and kill Greg, Rachel attempted to comprehend what she had heard so far, and what she'd seen. Calvin Gabriel was out there with Andre. He was killing people too. Cal, the boy everyone had seen as the better, nicer person of the Andre-Cal duo. Andre? If you'd asked around Tielson about who was most likely to shoot up the place, many would have named Andre. But Cal… you didn't just… he wasn't like that. So many times, Rachel had said it, heard others say it. That wasn't Cal.

How wrong all of them had been. How little they'd known Calvin Gabriel all these years.

After a few minutes of wandering around, apparently surveying the library and the students they'd killed, Andre and Cal returned to the tiled common area. Even while they had been away, Rachel didn't dare move, and neither did anyone hiding amongst the shelves with her. One boy had been brave enough to run for it- and he'd even yelled "Fuck you!" when Andre called out to him to stop.

But Rachel couldn't move. She just couldn't. Her survival instincts had been better than some of her classmates'. Rachel had managed to find a hiding place the killers hadn't thought to check, and had so far stayed alive. But even though she wanted to get away, Rachel could not move. She would stay here until she was found, or until this was over.

It occurred to Rachel that she had referred to both of those boys out there as "the killers" just now. Calvin Gabriel had become one of "the killers". Before knowing who they were, Rachel had thought of them as "the shooters". The killers, the shooters. That's what they were now, not students, sons, cousins or in Cal's case, big brother. They had acquired labels, titles earned through spilling blood and delivering death, and they would never shake them off again. Rachel, even as frozen as her mind and body were by the terror, the horror and the shock, knew this was true. Calvin Gabriel and Andre Kriegman would never be talked about separately. From now until the end of time, any discussion of one of them would inevitably involve discussion of the other. The best friends would be linked in the most cold and gruesome of bonds, always.

Then Rachel's mind registered something else, something picked up by her ears. Sirens. Police.

"Look out the window," Andre said. "That is a lotta fuckin' cops. Come on, let's go get a couple."

"No."

"Come on, let's go."

"I'm done."

"What are you- why- how are you done?"

"Andre, you're done."

"I don't- I'm not- I'm not done."

"Look, it's all right, we'll just…" Cal trailed off, sounding distracted, uncertain. The rage that had shaken his voice earlier had left it. He sounded more familiar, and yet, familiarity with him was impossible in Rachel's mind. Calvin Gabriel had now become someone she didn't know, and evidently never had. "Would you rather get shot by the cops, or, by yourself?" Cal asked.

"Yeah," Andre answered after a few moments. "I guess you're right."

"You guess or you know?"

"I know. You're right."

Rachel knew what was happening, what was about to happen. She wanted to stop it. She wanted to jump up, cry out, tell Cal to stop, enough. He didn't need to die, too. But Andre would surely kill her. There was no one he'd have been happier to find, except maybe some specific rich kids and football players.

Or maybe Cal would be the one to kill her if she showed herself. Rachel wanted to think there was no chance of that, that their friendship would hold, maybe even drive him to stop Andre from shooting her if she came out of hiding. She would have never believed Cal would just kill her like that.

But she would have never believed Cal would ever do anything like this at all.

"Stop," Andre suddenly said.

"What?" Cal asked.

"I can't do it. I just can't do it."

"You don't have to think about it," Cal said.

For maybe a minute, maybe two or three, Rachel listened to Calvin as he reassured and cajoled a nervous, uncertain Andre. It was a word she'd never expected to associate with Andre, "uncertain". For all his single-minded nature, for all his fury and short-tempered hostility, Andre had never, ever seemed uncertain about anything. His mind was always completely made up. Yet here he was, scared of dying. Frightened and unsure of himself. It made him seem oddly human, for the first time in all the years Rachel had been forced to know him. Andre Kriegman was scared.

Yet Cal was there. Calvin, the boy Rachel had known and liked and had a crush on for years, was there to catch Andre's will as it faltered, and bring it back up again. He proposed a simple count to three, with both of them to fire on three. They even got to haggling some over it, like they were trying to decide how to start a DND game. It was somehow so much worse, listening to Cal and Andre work out how to commit suicide like it was just another thing.

Finally, they settled on it, and Cal's voice was the only thing Rachel could hear in the otherwise-silent library, apart from the sirens outside.

"One…" he said, his voice growing more tense by the second. "Two… Three…"

Then Rachel heard two gunshots, and a thump and clattering sound as two bodies and two weapons hit the floor. One shot had followed the other by not even a second. Rachel stayed there, struggling to make sense of the fact that Calvin Gabriel had just taken his own life. Snuffed it out, like he'd switched off a light.

Rachel wished she could switch off her mind.

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 **A/N: 5-30-2017. Completed Chapter 2. Two more to go; "The Kriegmans" and then "The Gabriels".**

 **Not one word of original text went into this chapter, apart from one sentence I will remark on later. I was able to recover nothing and had to rewrite the chapter from scratch. Thankfully, I remembered at least what sort of form the chapter took and had an idea of where to start with it.**

 **The entire chain of events that Rachel listens to and briefly watches in the library goes from about 10:05 to 10:16 and 27 seconds, when Andre and Cal shoot themselves. So this chapter covers about ten minutes.**

 **The only thing, apart from the title of the chapter and its place as number two in the story, that is similar to the original is Rachel's thought that "She knew that voice." That is one sentence I do remember appeared in the original Chapter 2 of this story.**

 **The original word count of this story was 5,695 words. The total on this half-completed Word document, including the recovered text and titles for Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, is just over 6,000. If each chapter is between 1,400 and 2,000 words, the total count for the rewritten story will be a few thousand words above the original. The point to this and all the rest of the Restoration Series works is to recapture some of the brilliant, thought-provoking quality of the originals, not to imitate their exact length.**


	3. Chapter 3- The Kriegmans

**Chapter 3: The Kriegmans**

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 **May 1** **st** **, 2001, 9:15PM**

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 **A/N: A brief note before the start of the third chapter. Everyone in this movie- all the featured characters, anyway- are using their real first names. Andre, Cal, their parents, Cal's siblings and Rachel, are all using their real first names. The original author of these stories realized that and decided to use it in the story, hence Gerhard and Johanne are noted as the names of Andre's parents, even though none of the parents, to my memory, ever had their first names spoken in the movie.**

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There was something wrong.

Johanne Kriegman knew it, and she knew her husband Gerhard did, too. They'd been watching the news all day, ever since the news had started showing that- that horrible thing happening at Tielson High School. Over and over, it was all Johanne could think about: "That's my son's high school. Andre, my only son, he's in there."

Glances she had thrown at Gerhard as they both sat in their living room, their eyes riveted to the "far-seer" or "television" as Americans called it, showed his thoughts had to be in the same place. They had stayed here for hours, waiting for some kind of word from Andre. Waiting to see his blue 1989 Pontiac in front of the house, waiting for him to come home. Waiting for someone, anyone, to tell them that Andre was not among the children who had died at that school today.

The shootings had stopped about eleven hours ago. It was past nine PM and if he was alive, he would have already been home by now. Yet Johanne refused to give in to what that had to mean. She was not about to give up hope that her Andre was alive. She would not give up on her only son so easily.

Yet the passage of so many hours without a single sign of him… it wasn't good. Andre might have been shot and, if he was without his driver's license at the time- he was always leaving it in the car- he might be at some hospital with the staff trying to figure out who he was. Johanne would have preferred even that to an even worse alternative, but she didn't like thinking about that. Her only son lying in some hospital bed, straining to breathe through some mask…

Maybe they'd need to call around to some hospitals. Maybe they should have tried harder to reach the school, or should have driven over there. When they'd spoken to Chris over the phone, he'd said he was sure he'd seen Andre's car in the parking lot, in the faculty lot for some reason, but what did that prove? Nothing. Chris seemed to think Andre and his best friend Calvin Gabriel were involved, that maybe they'd even been responsible for what had happened at Tielson. But Gerhard and Johanne had shut him down. They simply would not hear it, would not listen to that possibility. Andre was better than that. His parents knew him better than that.

But did they? Did they?

 _Yes_ , Johanne told herself firmly, _we_ _do know him._ Anything else was just nonsense. They were just waiting _for_ a call, hopefully from their son _Andre_ , but they would take anyone calling them as long as it was to tell them that it was over, that they did not need to worry any longer.

Chances were that Johanne and Gerhard were worrying for nothing. Their son was alive and okay… although he would probably be injured. So many children had been killed at Tielson today. So many more had been injured, but managed to survive. Andre might well be among the second group. On a day like this, for him to be completely unharmed- it might be too much to ask.

Johanne _Kriegman's_ hands were clenched tightly around her phone as she stared at the clock. Her husband was sitting in his chair; no longer having the energy to pace, having worn himself out over the hours he had been doing so. They both wanted someone to tell them something, anything. Just that Andre was alive. If they could at least know that, they could deal with the rest. It had to be true. Andre had to be out there, wanting to see his parents as badly as they wanted to see him.

Johanne jumped slightly as a knock came at the door. Dropping the phone, she hurried to the door, her husband behind her. Tossing the door open, she looked at the two policemen on her doorstep. They were local police, of the department that served the county the Kriegman house was located in, that Tielson High School was located in. They both wore solemn masks of duty on their faces, and Johanne's heart sank. It didn't look like they'd come to say something good.

"I'm Officer Tori and this is my partner Officer Hendricks." The slightly older of the two said, nodding in the direction of the other officer. "You are Mr. and Mrs. Kriegman?"

"Yes," Johanne said carefully. "Is it important? What you have to tell us?"

"Yes, it is," Officer Tori said. "It's very important."

"We were hoping for some word from Andre, but we have not heard anything," Gerhard said.

Officer Tori stood silent for a moment. "May we come inside? There are a few things we need to talk to you about."

"Do you have news for us about Andre?" Gerhard asked.

"This isn't a conversation we should have here," Officer Tori said. "Please. May we come inside?"

"Of course… of course you may," Gerhard forced out, stepping back to let the two men inside of his home. The two uniformed officers followed Johanne to the two armchairs she indicated, and both of them sat down in them as Johanne and Gerhard took seats on the sofa.

Officer Tori hesitated for a few moments, seeming to gather himself before he spoke. "Mr. and Mrs. Kriegman, we are deeply sorry for disturbing you right now. As you know, there was a shooting at Tielson High School today. There's a lot we don't know right now, but, I think I can speak truthfully and say this one's gonna haunt us forever."

"Andre…" Johannes made herself say, almost blurting it out, holding her son's name up as a talisman, trying to ward off her rising terror about his fate. "Is Andre okay? Where is Andre?" Gerhard wrapped an arm around his wife's shoulder, and Johanne knew immediately he was feeling the same anxiety, the same fear.

The two police officers glanced at each other.

"In our sweeps of the school, we found your son," Officer Tori said, "and it's bad news. He's gone."

Johanne involuntarily cried out in pain, in grief, looking away from those stony-faced officers, their faces etched with the grim purpose, the terrible news they had come here with. She could not look at them. They had killed her last hopes. There was no arguing with faces like that. It was true. Andre was dead.

Yet Johanne struggled to make even the slightest sense of it. Who would ever hurt Andre, that sweet child? Who would have killed him like this, ended his life just as it held such promise and hope?

Gerhard let out a pained sound _as well_ , pulling his wife to his chest, the both of them hanging onto each other in desperation, in grief. Gerhard tried to comfort her, but they both knew it wouldn't work. The only thing that would comfort either of them would be to _have_ their son back _home_ and safe—better yet, to have him here now, alive and well, and to have never had any of the events of this terrible day happen at all.

It hurt so _much_. She could feel the pain tearing at her, clawing at her. How could her son be dead? Her only son? The son she had given birth to, raised from the day he had come home from the hospital, dozing and wrapped in soft blankets?

"There's more you should know," Officer Tori said. "When we found Andre-"

"Enough," Gerhard burst out. "We don't need the gory details. You can go. You have told us enough."

"What else is there?" Johanne asked them. "What else could you have to tell us? Haven't we heard what we need to?"

"Mrs. Kriegman… your son died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound."

"He was killed… murdered by some sick person." Johanne said. "You- you just told us that."

"What does that _mean_? What do you _mean_ he died from a… self-inflicted wound? That doesn't make sense. He would need a gun to do that.". Gerhard stared at the men uncomprehendingly, confused and uncertain.

"Evidence recovered at the scene we found in the school library-" Officer Tori broke off, and Johanne realized he must have been there. Maybe Hendricks had been, too. Both of them had a distinctly haunted look in their eyes. They had seen more than anyone ever would have wanted to. "It seems as though your son Andre was one of the gunmen."

"How- what would make anyone say that?" Johanne asked.

"We found your son and another boy with multiple firearms and knives on or near their bodies. They were decked out like they were going to war. Bags containing their IDs held an accumulation of pipe bombs. These matched the type and description of the detonated pipe bombs we found in a number of places around the school."

"No," Gerhard said desperately. "Your officers must have made some mistake, identified the wrong person. It isn't Andre."

"Even with the self-inflicted gunshot wound, his face- it was a match to the image displayed on his ID," Officer Tori said. "I'm sorry."

"Why would Andre do something like this?" Johanne asked.

"We were hoping you could tell us."

"We knew nothing of this!" Gerhard burst out. "If what you are saying is true, then Andre is a- is not the person we thought he was. He told us nothing. He gave no hint."

"My husband is right," Johanne said. "Andre didn't say a word. We had no idea he had any intention of… of… doing this."

Officer Tori looked between the two of parents. "For what little it's worth I believe you," he said finally. "I've seen a lot of people try to lie in front of me, and if you two are lying, you don't know you are. But not everyone's going to have seen you face-to-face like this. The State Police are coming over and they've got a warrant to search this house. But if I can tell them we have your cooperation, I'll make sure they go easier, and we'll get it over with. We're also gonna have to set up a barricade in front of this house, maybe block off the street. The press doesn't know about Andre yet but they will. It's just not a detail we'll be able to keep hidden."

"Do what you need to," Gerhard said tersely.

Officer Tori stood, and Officer Hendricks followed him. "We'll be outside to meet the State Police detectives when they get here. If you close the door, please leave it unlocked. We'll get the search over with as soon as possible."

Johanne barely noticed as the two men left the room, headed back outside. She would have to be involved when the State Police men showed up, but until then, she sat still, tears running down her face, trying to make some sense of what she had just been told. Andre was dead, and worse, he was responsible for the others. All the other injuries and deaths, all the shooting and killing, was because of him. That's what the police were saying, but Johanne and her husband- they couldn't bring themselves to fully believe it.

The other boy… that had to be… Andre, much as Johanne and Gerhard had tried to ignore it, had few friends. He had experienced social difficulties for much of his life, especially from 6th grade onward. He'd seemed to withdraw into himself somewhat. Then he'd made one friend, just one, in the fall of 1997, and from then on he had seemed to want no more. Johanne knew who he was. She knew his face, his voice, as well as she knew her son's.

It did not make it any better to know that the police would be making another visit to another house to deliver the same news tonight. Many families would be getting, or already had gotten, the terrible news. Just two would receive that and the news that their sons were responsible for it. Johanne cried with her husband, and prayed that somehow it was all wrong, that neither she and her husband, nor the Gabriels, would have to deal with this kind of pain. Surely anytime now Andre would bound in through the door, that smile on his face, to tell them it was all some joke. Even that, as angry as his parents would be with him for doing it later, would have them both overwhelmed with relief now.

Johanne even looked expectantly at the glass storm door, waiting for Andre to appear.

He never did. Only the local and state police officers did, twenty minutes later.

* * *

 **A/N: 5-30-2017. Completed Chapter 3. This one takes us into the evening, going on twelve hours since the shooting started around 10AM. The name of the high school Calvin and Andre attend is never specified in the film, but the original author of the stories being rewritten in the Restoration Series named it "Tielson," a name I have used every time I ever needed to name the school. It is one of the most enduring details left over from the original stories, one I carried into some original stories, not just the RS works.**

 **The extensive author's notes in each story and chapter of the Restoration Series are not just for the benefit of any readers. They are also for me. I have put a lot of time and effort into rebuilding and replacing these stories, and I guess I wanted to preserve the thoughts and opinions I had, and some of the process that went into it, instead of just rewriting the stories and recording no comments at all.**

 **Below are all of the words I was able to recover from the original Chapter 3. They are a bit of a mess, and this is a rare chapter in that I didn't actually use as much of the text verbatim as I usually do. Some of the dialogue, from what I could see of it, was actually not so great, so I took what it was trying to say and improved on its wording.**

* * *

 **It was past nine** _ **PM**_ **and if he was alive, he would already be home by ...**

 **Johanne jumped slightly as a** _ **knock**_ **came at the** _ **door**_ **. Dropping the phone, she hurried to the** _ **door**_ **, her husband behind her.**Tossing the** _ **door**_ **open, she looked at the two policemen on her**

 **"I'm** _ **officer Tori and this**_ **is my partner** _ **officer**_ **Hendricks." The slightly older of the two told them once the door was closed and they were lead to ...**

 **"** _ **Yes**_ **… it's very important. It is also ... It is** _ **also**_ **something that you may not believe but it has to do with the ...**

 **There are a few things we need to** _ **talk**_ **to you about." "Of… of course you may." Gerhard forced out, stepping back to let the two men inside of his home.**

" **We are deeply sorry for**disturbing you but as you know something happened** _ **today**_ **that will ...**

 _ **will**_ **forever haunt us and it just so happens that we** _ **have**_ **some** _ **news**_ **...**

 **"He was killed…** _ **murdered**_ **by some sick person.**

 **They were just waiting** _ **for**_ **a call, hopefully from their son** _ **Andre**_ **, but they would take anyone calling them as long as it was to tell them that it was ...**

 **Their son was alive and okay… although he would probably be injured.**

" **I am horribly sorry to tell you that your so she began thickly, her husband squeezing her** _ **shoulder**_ **. "Andre… is Andre okay? Where is Andre?" Gerhard wrapped an arm around his wife's ...n Andre is dead and-."**

 **It seems your son Andre was one of the gunmen.**

 **"We found your son and another boy strapped with** _ **multiple**_ **guns. There were bags with their IDs and there were also pipe bombs inside of the**

 **Why would anybody hurt Andre, that** _ **sweet child**_ **?**

 **We** _ **don't**_ **need the gory details."**

 **Mrs. Kriegman… your son died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound."**

 **"What does that** _ **mean**_ **? What do you** _ **mean**_ **he died from a… self-inflicted wound? That doesn't make sense. He would need a gun to do that.".**

 **The policemen glanced at each** _ **other**_ **before they turned back to the**two parents**

" **It hurt so** _ **much**_ **. She could feel the pain tearing at her, clawing at her. How could her son be dead? Her only son? The son she had given birth"**

 **Johanne** _ **Kriegman's**_ **hands were clenched tightly around her phone as she stared at the clock. Her husband was sitting in his chair; no longer**having the energy to pace,**having worn himself out over**the hours he had been doing so.**

 **Gerhard let out a pained sound** _ **as well**_ **, pulling his wife to his chest, the both of them**

 **Gerhard tried to comfort her, but they both knew it wouldn't work. The only thing that would comfort either of them would be to** _ **have**_ **their son back** _ **home**_ **and safe—better yet; ...**

 **That's what the** _ **police**_ **were saying, but they still couldn't bring**themselves to fully believe that.**


	4. Chapter 4- The Gabriels

**Chapter 4: The Gabriels**

* * *

 **May 1** **st** **, 2001, 10:57PM**

* * *

 **A/N: And so we come to the final chapter of this story. It is the second that is set at the exact same time of day as the original was; Chapter 1 and Chapter 4 both have that in common. I remember some impressions I had upon reading Chapter 4 of the original "The Reactions Of Many," and Chapter 4 was by far the best. All were excellent, but this one- through the CD that the author had Cal record a video on and leave behind for his parents- is in a class all of its own. This was, along with Chapter 3, the hardest in this story to rewrite.**

* * *

Pam and Steve Gabriel sat in their darkened living room, not moving, not speaking. They had been sitting there for nearly an hour after the news had been broken to them. The two of them couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't believe what the officers had told them. They had agreed to wait to search the house until tomorrow, but it could wait no longer than that.

It was impossible to believe. It could not have happened. The sheer horror of it, the grief- it was too much. Pam and Steve both felt their minds rejecting it, refusing to accept it. Neither of them wanted them to _have_ been telling the truth, but a part of Pam just couldn't deny it because why would they lie about something like that? Who would be so cruel as to attempt such a deceitful act in the first place?

Their son was _dead_ and… he had killed himself after killing twelve others? Two or twelve, Pam supposed it didn't really matter. It might as well have been twelve million. All of those dead kids, all those families whose sons and daughters were never coming home again.

Calvin was responsible for that. The police hadn't said who the other boy they'd found him lying next to was, but Pam didn't need to guess. It was Andre, always Andre. They had lived side-by-side as best friends, and today, they'd died together. Calvin had worked with his best friend to inflict a terrible, unforgivable evil on the world before he went.

Calvin had always been a _sweet child_ _,_ the _sweetest child they had ever known_. He had always been quiet and a bit shy, but when he smiled it was like the world just lit up with him. That boy had been Pam and _Steve's_ first child and he would always hold that special place in their hearts but along with their love _for_ him there was now confusion. What kind of memory were Calvin's parents supposed to have of him? How were they supposed to forgive him for what he had done? Would that even be possible?

"I don't think the police were lying about- about Calvin," Pam said quietly.

"Yeah," Steve replied. Not directly agreeing, but not exactly disagreeing with her words either.

Pam glanced at the front door of the house, the one the police had come and gone through. The one Calvin had left through this morning, never to come back again. It hurt knowing that their son wouldn't ever be walking through those doors again—and _Pam_ desperately wished that she would wake up and this would all turn out to be some terrible nightmare, the tears still on her face because it had been so real.

Surely Calvin, sweet, kind Calvin, would not have chosen to leave the world like this. Surely the last time Pam would hear his voice wasn't going to be a hurried "Bye" as she called out to him as he headed off to school in the morning. Surely.

"What… what are we going to tell Eric and Madelyn?" Pam asked.

"We _can't_ tell them what those police officers said until… until we know ... until we know for sure."

"It happened, Steve. I know it."

"Yes," Steve said, and it sounded like his heart broke just a little more as he said it. "But… we need to be sure. We need some- some kind of confirmation. The police will… they'll tell us when they know more. So we should wait."

Pam looked at her husband suddenly. "Steve… How could this have happened? Didn't we raise Calvin to be a good person? Where on earth did we go wrong?"

Steve swallowed tightly, wiping at his own face, shaking slightly. "I-I don't know, but the Kriegmans… they're ... probably feeling exactly like we are. People will be pointing fingers at _all_ of us enough as it is, so let's promise not to blame Andre or his parents, alright?"

That was true. Pam hadn't thought about that. "I can't imagine what this must be like for them right now."

"Probably not too different from us." Steve said, his voice and face bleak.

"Gerhard and Johanne… they moved here from Germany. Johanne told me once they felt Andre- the best life they could offer him was here."

"I-I don't know what to say," Steve said, wiping at his eyes, his voice shaking. "I don't."

Pam didn't either. She stayed silent, staring at nothing. Steve did the same. What was there to do? What could you possibly do after you've just been told the first life you and your husband brought into the world is gone, and that he departed under such horrific circumstances?

Finally, _Pam_ stood _up_ and walked out of the room. She didn't say where she was going, and Steve didn't ask. Neither of them would be going far from the other's presence for a long time to come. They were depending on each other for survival now. But at this very moment, Pam needed to do something. She needed to look in her son's room, violating a rule that had developed between them years ago. She needed to see it before the police went through it tomorrow.

 _Everything_ felt weird, different as she walked through the halls of her house. It was all the same, but it was never going to be the same again. Not even the smallest picture hung on the wall, even the light switches or carpet seemed normal. "Normal" was a word that had suddenly been taken from Pam and her husband. Nothing would ever seem normal again for a long time. Maybe they'd never know what that word meant again, not after today. Everything that ever happened in their lives would begin again from May 1st, 2001. It would all be "Before May 1st," and "After May 1st."

Pam hesitated as she reached the closed door to her oldest son's room. Her first thought was that if she went in there and looked around, Calvin would be very angry with her. He had for some time now adamantly insisted that he be allowed to take care of his room entirely on his own, without any searches or prying eyes. Pam and Steve had resisted it at first, but finally gave in, and held to it. They had not seen more than occasional visits inside of Calvin's room in years.

Calvin was dead, and still, what he would have thought held sway over her. Pam still thought of him, and what he would have wanted, and didn't want to break his trust in her or upset him. Even though he had betrayed her trust in him in a worse way than she would've ever thought possible, Pam still cared about Calvin. Still loved him. That made this all so much worse.

As difficult as it was to do, Pam knew she could not be stopped by sentimental attachments to Calvin. She opened the door and walked into the bedroom of her first child, doing what she had promised she never would- going in without his permission. She stood around uncertainly, not sure what to do.

Biting down on her lip, Pam took a seat on her son's bed, staring at a picture of him and the rest of the family on the _desk_ across from the bed. Calvin's smile seemed so genuine, so sincere. He looked truly happy, truly content with life. By the time that picture had been taken, Calvin would be dead in less than a year. Had he known as he smiled for that photo that this day was coming? Had he and Andre planned this out that far in advance?

 _Looking_ around, she saw how empty it was. She frowned. Where were all of his things? His posters, books, games, and CDs/DVDs? Calvin didn't like it when she entered his room without his permission and so had taken up to cleaning up his own room in the last couple of years as well as doing his own laundry so that she never had a reason to go to his room. This room _looked_ like it belonged to a prisoner or patient it was so barren. The last time Pam had been in there, it had looked like a normal teenage boy's bedroom.

It looked like a monk's cell now.

Pam thought she saw something silver on the main drawer of Calvin's desk, and got up to investigate. She pulled the drawer out and found a CD there. The room, the desk and its other drawers, the closet- it was all absolutely empty. But the CD had been deliberately placed there. Calvin had placed it there. Pam knew it.

 _The CD_ was blank, not giving any hint as to what it could be. Standing back up, she walked out of the room and to the household's computer. Logging on, she slipped the disk into the drive, feeling her husband come up behind her.

At once her son's face popped up on _screen_ , and she felt herself choke up, her husband's hand squeezing around her shoulder. The blond swallowed tightly on camera, glancing down.

"Well, Mom, Dad… I'm guessing you found this… or you might be the police having checked _my room_ for anything, either way…"

The police? Pam wanted to close her eyes at what that meant, but she couldn't bring herself to do so.

"I'm going to speak as if I'm speaking to my mother and father, so if it's the police, could you please at least let them see this if they want to? There's nothing in my room or in the house. Leave them alone. They didn't do anything to anyone. I did. It's just me."

Calvin glanced down again, clearing his throat. He had some visible difficulty making himself look up at the camera.

"Anyway, this is my own personal _goodbye_. Andre and I made another tape where we say a lot of things, but I wanted something purely for the both of you. Andre doesn't know about this but I don't think he'd mind even if he did. He trusts me and I trust him and I can leave my own goodbye if I want to… I don't want either of you to blame _yourselves_ , okay? This… what Andre and I have done has nothing to do with either of you. It has everything to do with everything else, but I love both of you, okay?"

Another pause, and Calvin took a few moments to gather himself, summon the effort to continue the video.

"You both were two of the only good things in my life. You were brilliant parents and I couldn't have asked for better. Calvin tilted his head slightly, staring into the lens on the video. "It's not _your fault_ your son was a psycho—and I know I am one. I won't deny it, but I did this for you and for everybody else in the world. People… the world needs to realize that they're wrong. Really, really wrong. About a lot of things. People value the wrong stuff, they, they care about the wrong stuff. Money, clothes, cars and stuff like that- it doesn't matter. People think it does, but they're wrong. No one questions anything, they just do what they're told. They just believe things blindly. They don't think. People need to wake up. That's what me and Andre did. You write letters or organize protests and everyone ignores you. You take lives, you kill, and they listen. They have to listen. This is me and Andre sending our wake-up call to the world. They always told me in school that my purpose in life was out there, I just have to find it."

Calvin paused. "Well, this is it. This is my purpose in life. Please, don't blame yourselves. Don't. None of this is because of you. Don't think you did something wrong in raising me, or you didn't love me enough. This is just something that me and Andre had to do. Don't go missing me. Tell the whole family to just forget about me. I deserve to be forgotten."

Calvin paused again, swallowing, visibly emotional. "I guess that's it. I can't think of anything else. Tell Eric and Madelyn that I love them. I love all of you. I'm sorry. Goodbye."

The video ended, and Pam and Steve only felt more hurt and confused than before they had watched it.

* * *

 **A/N: 5-30-2017. Some interesting pieces of information in the recovered fragments of author's notes for this chapter. The original author definitely liked Calvin Gabriel best- that doubtless was an influence in the choice to write "Calvin's Video Diaries", a feature-length piece where Calvin is the main character and everyone else makes the occasional guest appearance.**

 **Also interesting is the expressed interest in eventually following up on this, giving Andre and his family more coverage. I do not know if "The Aftermath" was what the author did to follow up, or if they'd intended to do something more. Again "drabble" is mentioned. That's what some of these stories and chapters were. It again amazes me that I have put such effort into recovering and reconstructing stories that the original author just fired off in a fit of brilliant inspiration and then never touched again until the day came when they chose to delete them all.**

" **RS5- The Reactions of Many" is now completed. This is it. The follow-up to it, "RS6- The Aftermath," remains to be done, as does "RS7- Calvin's Video Diaries". Out of 8 works in the Restoration Series, I have as of 5-30-2017 completed six, putting the project at 75% completion just short of six months after it was started. This bodes well for my goal of finishing the whole thing by the end of 2017.**

 **If you read all of the original stories, you would know that the author noted having read Eric Harris' journal, Dylan Klebold's journal, and Brook's Brown's book** _ **No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death at Columbine**_ **to better depict Calvin in particular, but also Andre. I would highly recommend reading those three works to anyone who is interested in learning more about what happened on 4-20-1999, and trying to understand it.**

 **Susan Klebold, Pam Gabriel's real-life counterpart, mentioned something over the past ten years about writing a book. She did, and it is** _ **A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy**_ **, published in February 2017. I haven't read it yet, but it has received just over 1,000 reviews on Amazon.**

 **The massacre at Columbine is now closing in on twenty years ago. Zero Day, had it been real, would be sixteen years in the past in 2017. Some people, I think, are already forgetting. Plenty- I feel- knowingly or unknowingly spit on what happened at Columbine by marking April 20 with a celebration of America's obsession with weed. I refuse to do that. Just remember that Susan Klebold hasn't forgotten and for her, April 20 will never be some ridiculous, unofficial holiday. It will never be "National Weed Day" for anyone in her family, the Harris family, or anyone else whose family was affected by what happened at Columbine. I haven't read Susan Klebold's book yet, but I am going to. I am certain it will be memorable and moving to read.**

 **I am sorry if my own opinions are coming on a little strong here. Strong feelings about this whole thing are no small part in why I have contributed so many stories to the** _ **Zero Day**_ **fandom, and why I refused to let those 8 magnificent stories go when the original author chose to delete them around a year ago. I feel that** _ **Zero Day**_ **is a powerful movie with real-world applications, and it needs- it must have- quality fanfiction to add to what the movie touches on. There must be more here for those who come looking for it. Frankly, I think** _ **Zero Day**_ **is more than most people are comfortable with. Way easier to simply damn the parents, demonize the shooters as "born to kill", and walk away. Those are the easy answers, but as Brooks Brown points out to us, there are no easy answers with something like Columbine, or with** _ **Zero Day**_ **, its fictional counterpart.**

 **Susan Klebold has recounted in the years since April 20, 1999 that the last thing she ever heard Dylan say was "Bye" as he headed out the front door that morning, already out of sight. I do not believe the original Chapter 4 of this story included any recollection of that as the last thing Calvin said to his mother, but I thought it appropriate to include it here.**

 **Susan Klebold really did have a policy of staying out of her son Dylan's room, and leaving him to manage it by himself. That the original author included that as a trait in Cal and Pam's relationship is just one of many little details showing the thought the original author put into their stories on this movie. The original author, I can definitively say, did their homework.**

 **As always with my stories, the views expressed are those of the characters expressing them, and not my own.**

 **Below is everything I could recover from the original Chapter 4:**

* * *

 **A/N: If you couldn't tell, I'm quite in love with Calvin, but there's just so** _ **much**_ **there... eventually I'll do more with Andre and his family as well, but…**

 **They had been sitting there** _ **for**_ **nearly an hour after the news had been broken to them. The two of them couldn't move, couldn't** _ **speak**_ **, couldn't believe what the officers had told them.**

 **Calvin had always been a** _ **sweet child**_ **, the** _ **sweetest child they had ever known**_ **.**

 **He had always been quiet and a bit shy, but when he smiled it was like the world just lit up with him.**

 **Steve replied softly, not really disagreeing with her** _ **words**_ **though.**

 **It hurt knowing that their son wouldn't ever be walking through those doors again—and** _ **Pam**_ **desperately wished that she would wake up and ...**

 **Neither of them wanted them to** _ **have**_ **been telling the truth, but a part of Pam just couldn't deny it because why would they lie about something ...**

 **Their son was** _ **dead**_ **and… he had killed himself after killing twelve**others?**

 **"We** _ **can't**_ **tell them what those police officers said until… until we know ...**until we know for sure.**

 **That boy had been Pam and** _ **Steve's**_ **first child and he would always hold that special place in their hearts but along with their love** _ **for**_ **him there**was now**confusion.**

 **Didn't we raise Calvin to be a good person? Where on earth did we go wrong?" Steve swallowed tightly, wiping at his own face, shaking slightly. "I-I don't know, but the Kriegmans… they're ... probably feeling exactly like we are. People will be pointing fingers at** _ **all**_ **of us enough as it is, so let's promise not to**blame Andre or his parents, alright?"**

 **... "What… what are we going to tell** _ **Eric**_ **and Madelyn?**

 **Biting down on her lip, Pam took a seat on her son's bed, staring at a picture of him and the rest of the family on the** _ **desk**_ **across from the bed.**

 **Steve swallowed tightly, wiping at** _ **his own**_ **face, shaking slightly.**

 **Finally,** _ **Pam**_ **stood** _ **up**_ **and walked out of the room. ...**

 _ **Everything**_ **felt weird, different as she walked through the halls of her ...**

 _ **Looking**_ **around, she saw how empty it was. She frowned. Where was all of his things? His posters, books, games, and CDs/DVDs? Calvin didn't like it when she entered his room without his permission and so had taken up to cleaning up his own room in the last couple of years as well as doing his own laundry so that she never had a reason to go to his room.**

 **This room** _ **looked**_ **like it belonged to a prisoner or patient it was so ...**

 **had been in there, it had looked like a normal teenage boy's bedroom.**

 _ **The CD**_ **was blank, not giving any hint as to what it could be. Standing back up, she walked out of the room and to the household's computer. Logging on, she slipped the disk into the drive, feeling her husband come up behind her.**

 **At once her son's face popped up on** _ **screen**_ **, and she felt herself choke up, her husband's hand squeezing around her shoulder. The blond swallowed tightly on camera, glancing down.**

 **I'm guessing you found this… or you might be the police having checked** _ **my room**_ **for anything, either way…" The police? Pam wanted to close her eyes at what that meant, but she couldn't bring herself to do so.**

" **I'm going to speak as if I'm speaking to my mother and father, so if it's the police, could you please at least let them see this if they want to?**

 **"Anyway, this is my own personal** _ **goodbye**_ **. Andre and I made another tape where we say a lot of things, but I wanted something purely for the both of you. Andre doesn't know about this but I don't think he'd mind even if he did.**

 **I don't want either of you to blame** _ **yourselves**_ **, okay? This… what Andre and I have done has nothing to do with either of you. It has everything to do with everything else, but I love both of you, okay?"**

 **You both were two of the only good things in my life. You were brilliant parents and I couldn't have asked for better. Calvin tilted his head slightly, staring into the lens on the video. "It's not** _ **your fault**_ **your son was a psycho—and I know I am one. I won't deny it, but I did this for you and for everybody else in the world.**

 **The video ends, and Pam and Steve only felt more hurt and confused than before they had watched it.**

 **story/drabble piece I will be doing for Andre though. Maybe I'll write it tomorrow. Not that anyone cares, haha. Oh and this is the final** _ **chapter**_ **, ..**


End file.
